Tesla settles with engineer accused of taking AI trade secrets

By Blake Brittain

(Reuters) – Tesla (NASDAQ:) Inc has settled a lawsuit against one of its former engineers, Alexander Yatskov, whom it accused of stealing trade secrets related to its AI-training supercomputer Dojo, according to a filing on Wednesday in San Francisco federal court.

The joint filing said the terms of the settlement were confidential but Yatskov would make a monetary payment to the company.

Representatives for both sides did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Yatskov was a thermal engineer working on Dojo, a supercomputer that Tesla said in its lawsuit would “help solve difficult engineering problems, such as vehicle autonomy.” The company said it had hired Yatskov last January and that he had resigned that May after being put on administrative leave.

Tesla sued Yatskov that month for allegedly keeping confidential information about Dojo on his personal computer. The lawsuit also alleged Yatskov had provided a “dummy” computer for Tesla to investigate to “cover his tracks.”

Yatskov previously told the court that Tesla had filed the lawsuit during his last day of work and that he had turned over the company’s materials after he left.

According to the Wednesday filing, Yatskov admitted to transferring confidential Tesla information to his personal computer during his employment, but said that he only had kept it for work purposes and had sought to delete it after the work was finished.

A San Francisco federal judge sent the case to arbitration last August, rejecting Yatskov’s plea to keep it in federal court so he could publicly contest Tesla’s claims, which the engineer described as “humiliating.”